Monday, February 20, 2012

Thursday Post on Monday

It’s full faculty critique week for juniors again. I’m in Sarasota or commuting 7am-8pm Thursday and Friday this week. Cuts into my training a bit, so I woke up this morning and ran a little under 3 miles with Erica and brought Lola along for the ride. That puppy needs to be exhausted all the time to prevent disasters.

So today, Erica and I hit one of the local Yoga studios for a once-a-month opportunity to do some serious DEEP stretching with Lisa Jamison of LIFT Performance. The room was filled with athletes and we worked for about 2 hours. She opened by saying that she knew that we all knew what muscle felt like. Today we would learn what ligaments and tendons feel like. It was painful. Dull, long, pain in positions that you hold for 5-8 minutes. I went to the bad places in some of the holds. Doubt, fear of injury, wormtongue-ish whispers of weakness that lead to tension and anxiety. At one point, I was convinced that my femur had actually left my hip socket. It was good. I went to the dark place of the mind (where I doesn’t exist), where this is nothing but the maelstrom of sensation, emotion, and will. And the silent nasty power that that is lead me to deeper stretches and a world of pain.

When we left, I felt more relaxed than I remember feeling in a LOOONG time.

This morning I woke up to mid-30 degree weather. This is not why I live in Florida. I thought this was all gone for this year, but alas, one more cold snap. After having a very hard time pulling myself from bed, I headed to the gym to meet M for our morning run. We agreed on treadmills. I only got in about 2.8 miles before striking training.

Coach had warned us that we all needed to be wrapped, gloved, and warmed-up by 9. We were and he came in with some of the old school funk. We started at the bags. He had us pair off and work bags for about 20 minutes with one one-minute breather. One-two combos non-stop leading to flow drills, to power punching to speed sprints. All continuously changing and leaving my shoulders feeling swollen and on fire. Then we partnered up for drills and flow drills (continuous punching by both partners) with kicks for another 30 minutes. Then we stripped off gloves and wraps and Coach had us doing 2 knuckle pushups on his count for another 5 minutes or so. When that was done, we went back to the bags without gloves and did one-two punching using the two knuckle punches. When that wrapped, back to the floor for 2 knuckle pushups on his count. We have now begun to add-in old school body hardening. For that entire 1 hour and 10 minute ordeal, we got 2 water breaks and a total rest of about 5 minutes. The pace ranged from steady-intense to vomit-inducing. When training was over. Everyone grabbed their stuff and left with almost no conversation. We all had gone into some deep water.

Today was the team’s first day training with our new BJJ coach, MA (not to be confused with our previous BJJ coach who was also MA) . MA trained with the Diaz boys of UFC fame and seems like a very good fit for our team. Our team is 2 purple belts and 5 blues in BJJ. We have all trained with the same BJJ coaches in the past, and were curious what MA would be like on the mat. We started with warm-ups and him teaching us his warm-up routine as well as explaining some of the movements and why they need to be executed exactly as he suggests (as they are set-up for technique later and we’re building the motor programs that will make them automatic). He then lead us through some basic techniques including mounted arm-bar, key-lock/americana technique, and a nice sweep that leads to a mounted arm-in guillotine.

Throughout training, MA would correct and make refinements. One of the guys told him that I was a professor (something they all seem to find amusing), and he’s called me nothing by Profesor since. Profesor, arch your weight into him and switch your hips. Profesor, grab his leg and drive into him. It was good to get back on the mat. After drills and technique studies, we rolled for 3 5-minute rounds rotating partners. It was obvious we hadn’t been rolling regularly. We were all moving inefficiently, over-muscling, and generally over-working. I was pretty tired by then end.

When we finished up, M and I headed to the park to run sprints. P timed us and kept us inline, pushing us and not letting our fatigue make us lazy. After sprints, I went home, showered, and took Erica to brunch.

Later tonight, I headed to the gym to do my private with Coach. I normally do those on Tuesday mornings, but now that grappling is back in the mix, I had to move it to pre-boxing. I did an hour of mits. He was pushing me. For a couple rounds, he would just walk toward me while calling punch combinations. I had to keep pushing back while in my stance so that I could continuously throw punches, slip, counter, etc. My legs were gone, my wind was pushed hard, my shoulders were dead, and my will was going fast. Somehow, I made it through three rounds past the round where I walked to the corner imaging that I had an opponent across from me that I wanted to violently dismember for making me hurt by virtue of my continuously punching him. Another night of dark places.

After my private, I stuck around to do the conditioning torture with the boxing team. About 10 minutes into the training, my right calf cramped badly and knotted up nasty. I tried to rub it out and get back to training, but it kept curling up. Coach came over and stretched it out, but wouldn’t let me continue. He said that it would only get worse and to go hydrate. I hate dropping out. I walked to the mats and did some of the nasty stretches that I learned this past weekend. Note to self: more water and electrolytes.

In other news, I can kind-of close my mouth now. I need to have my doctor do my blood panels (proactive monitoring) and sign my boxing book for the year. I think I’ll have her take a look at the jaw. I hope it’s not dislocated.

M and I met early this morning for a good 5 mile run. We came in and I worked with Lefty D. I felt clumsy all day. D was looking pretty good. Much tighter and more organized than in previous training sessions in which we worked together. I did feel very comfortable with counter-kicking to the inside of his lead leg. I hate the days when I feel like this. Like everything takes longer to get off, that I’m more tired than I should be, like nothing is working cleanly and efficiently. That being said, pushing through it is good training. So that’s what I did.